Prindy blinked, was silent for a moment, then, because she was staring, turned his face with lips projected towards the homestead, said, ‘Mumma there.’
‘What?’ she demanded, and looked at Jeremy.
He gave a slight warningful shake of the head. She asked, ‘Why, what?’
He murmured, ‘Another mother.’ Then: ‘That all your luggage?’
Alfie said, ‘It’s really only a flying visit . . . figuratively, as well as literally. I want to catch the mail plane back on Monday.’
‘Hmm! Must be important, to bring you all this way for a couple of days.’
‘It is!’
The answer was made with such emphasis that Jeremy looked at her quickly, but meeting the black eyes, wide with challenge, as quickly looked away, at Fergus, to whom he said, ‘You’ll put up at the house too, eh, son?’
‘Thanks, Mullaka,’ said Fergus, and swung away to get his own valise.
As Jeremy turned back to Alfie to hand her into the utility, she said, ‘I understood you had some people here . . . Jews.’
He didn’t look at her, or answer till he’d got her seated: ‘A Jewish doctor, and a . . . young lady.’ He hesitated slightly in saying the last, and coloured a little. He added quickly, turning away to look at Prindy and Fergus getting into the back, ‘Refugees.’
As quickly she asked, ‘Are they staying permanently?’
He didn’t answer, but went round to get in on the other side.
As he started up, she said, ‘I asked you if your Jews are staying permanently.’
With eyes on the track as he drove off, he answered, ‘Permanent’s a longish word, isn’t it?’
She gave a little giggle, and pushed her curly head against his shoulder. ‘My same dear darling Jeremy, quibbling about words.’ Then as she straightened up, she spoke crisply: ‘Speaking of words . . . we haven’t had anything from you lately.’ When he shrugged, she asked, ‘What’s that mean?’ He shrugged again, this time with a grimace. She demanded: ‘Means you’re not writing, eh?’ When still he remained silent, she asked, in the same tone, ‘Why not?’
He shot her a glance, looked away. She said, ‘Meaning mind your own business, eh?’ When he smiled slightly, she said sharply, ‘It is my business, Jeremy . . . if it’s something that’s wasting your talents.’
He half-growled, ‘What talents?’
‘You’ve already shown it tremendously in what you’ve written.’
He looked at her fully and in surprise. ‘Attacks on Anti-Judaism in an Anti-Semitic rag!’
‘Your articles were far more than that. That’s why they were published.’
‘I wasn’t aware of anything else in them.’
‘You wouldn’t be . . . because of your natural genius. What you were doing, was speaking with the true Voice of Australia. It inspired us all . . . as I wrote and told you at the time . . .’
‘And the contempt I expressed for your Anti-Semitism?’
‘The Anti-Semitism is rather something of a mistake.’
‘I haven’t noticed that you’ve cut it out of subsequent editions.’
‘That would be your job.’
He looked again in surprise. She went on, somewhat breathlessly, and with pretty face bright with excitement now: ‘I mean it, Jeremy! Your talent’s needed now as never before. Even to rectify mistakes, with the great common sense you have as well . . . a rare thing in men of genius.’
He flushed. ‘Now, go easy . . .’
‘I’m not going easy. This is the Time, Jeremy . . . for all of us . . . and for you most of all of us.’
‘Time for what?’
‘Being Australian.’
He sighed: ‘Haven’t I been Australian all my life . . . God help me!’
‘You’ve got to teach other people to be as Australian as yourself.’
‘Haven’t we been through all this before?’
‘We only just got started on it before.’
‘Is this another session?’
‘Any objection?’
He shrugged. ‘You are my guest, my dear.’
‘But uninvited, eh?’ Then when he didn’t answer, she leaned against his shoulder again, murmuring, ‘You called me My Dear. I like that.’ When he stiffened, she withdrew, but ran a slim hand down the bare of his arm, adding with a sigh, ‘Because you are dear to me, Jeremy.’
They ran on in silence to the homestead, came through the mangoes, were slowing down in the run across the yard to the front of the Big House, when she said, in a voice that sounded strained, ‘I hear there’s a beautiful Jewess involved.’
He swallowed, waited till he had stopped the car to answer, ‘In what?’
She almost snapped it, ‘In you!’
He alighted, went round to help her out. But she was getting out already. For a moment she stared into his eyes as he stood waiting. Then as her feet touched the ground, she smiled her wide smile, swung to Prindy who was climbing down, looked around, exclaiming, ‘Dear Lily Lagoons! It’s like coming home again.’
He took her arm to lead her in, perhaps to prevent her from taking his.
Rifkah was waiting, with Kurt, in the lounge, not in the usual mannish outfit she affected, the stockrider’s pants and shirt, but in a floral dress, and looking very feminine, and was flushed and a little out of breath, perhaps through having changed in haste. Why should she change, if not at a hint from someone who knew something of the visitor and thought the move tactical? That is to say Nanago who was not in evidence herself.
The eyes of the two young women seized upon each other at sight, the hazel eyes of the one seeming to grow wider as if in apprehension, the other’s black eyes to narrow calculatingly. Jeremy apparently, was aware of the tension between the two, judging by his awkwardness in introducing them. Alfie, flashing her wide smile when the introductions were done, spun on her high heels to look round the room with a proprietorial air, saying, ‘This dear place . . . I do miss it . . . the peace!’ She turned to Jeremy. ‘I could never live permanently in the South again.’ Then she giggled: ‘Of course, I’ve got to come back eventually for good . . . because I’ve swum in the Pool. I was telling Fergus, as we flew over it. He says he’s swum in it, too.’ Then she turned quickly on Rifkah. ‘Fergus says you’ve done it, too.’
Rifkah coloured, shot a glance at Fergus, who looked down. She looked back at Alfie, swallowed, and murmured, ‘Yes.’
Alfie’s colour rose too. Her eyes narrowed: ‘Did you know that if you do that, you’ll have to die here?’
Again the murmured answer, with a slight nod, ‘Yes.’
Now Alfie swallowed, ‘Then why did you do it?’
Rifkah drew a deep breath. ‘I like it here.’
Alfie took another swing round, but to look at the others in the room, then back to Rifkah. ‘How can you really like it, when you don’t belong here?’
Another swallow. ‘I belong here now.’
Alfie made an impatient gesture. ‘But that’s ridiculous. You’re a stranger. You come from something quite different. You’ve got to be born here.’ She turned on Jeremy. ‘You can’t really love a place unless you belong to it . . . you’ve got to grow out of it . . . like a tree . . . be part of the soil itself . . . and its tradition has got to be yours. Isn’t that so, Jeremy?’
Jeremy, looking rather red, turned to get drinks. Alfie flung after him. ‘Well, that’s what you taught me . . . Master!’
Jeremy, quite red now, glanced at her sternly, but only to say, ‘I presume you still drink alcohol?’
‘Of course . . . didn’t you teach me that too?’ And she came after him, adding: ‘But what’s happened to so suddenly change your opinions?’
Getting the home-brew out of the ice-box, he growled, ‘What opinions?’
‘Of love of the land . . . of the spirit of the place.’
He looked right at her, snapping, ‘Perhaps reading that rag, Australia Free.’
Fergus gave a loud guffaw. Now Alfie went red. But she sum
moned up the smile. ‘Well, so long as you read it . . . and, write for it.’
Jeremy set the drink on the table. A little silence. Alfie broke it, doing another of her flings around: ‘But where’s Nanago?’ She looked at Rifkah.
Rifkah answered promptly, ‘In kitchen . . . I vill get her.’ She started off.
‘No . . . I’ll go myself,’ said Alfie quickly.
For a step or two they went shoulder to shoulder, eyeing each other with that primary intensity and similar expressions. Then Rifkah halted. She looked back, at Jeremy who was staring. A moment. Then she said, ‘All right. I go get rooms ready.’
Alfie threw a smile back at the others, surely of triumph the way her eyes shone. Then she went into the dining-room, through to the kitchen, hailing Nan loudly as she entered.
Nan, also dressed up, and with a hibiscus in her hair, looked startled for the moment. Alfie smiled easily, looking her over, saying, ‘My, but you look nice!’ And she kissed her. ‘No troubles?’ she asked.
Nan smiled in answer and shook her head.
‘Nice to see you again, Nan, dear . . . But how’re you getting along with the Jew-girl . . . what’s her name?’
Nan met the quizzing black eyes. ‘Rifkah all right.’
‘That’s nice. You’re still the boss, then?’
‘On’y one boss . . . Jeremy.’
Again their eyes clung. Then Alfie swung away, to speak to the black girls. As she was turning to go back to the lounge, after some minutes of playful talk and looking about the place, she said to Nan, ‘Prendy’s come on marvellously, hasn’t he! Who’s responsible for the . . . for breaking him in?’ Alfie giggled at her own way of putting it, adding, ‘You or the Boss?’
‘Nobody break him in. He jes come quiet, himself-himself.’
‘Ah . . . I knew he would! But what’s this about his having another mother . . . that you, eh?’
Nan shook her head, so that the hibiscus shed its laden pollen on her silky hair. ‘I can’t be his Mumma.’
‘Who then?’
Again their eyes locked. Nan projected her lips towards the lounge. Alfie’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean the Jew-girl?’
Still holding the other dark eyes, Nanago asked, ‘Don’ you know dat girl name yet?’
Alfie blinked, and reddened slightly, took a moment to answer, ‘Well!’ With that she left the kitchen.
It was a somewhat different Alfie who re-entered the lounge. Gone that new arrogance, that impatient swinging-about of the woman of the world with more to do than play at social niceties. Her smile was less wide, her manner more that of the engaging little girl of old. Seeing the drinks out, she said, ‘Ah . . . that’s what I want . . . something to relax me. Coming back here by plane’s too quick. Coming from a place like Sydney, you need to go through some sort of decompression chamber, like divers do. Ah, this lovely Lily Lagoons brew! The nicest stuff in the world.’ She looked fondly at Jeremy, adding, ‘Except brandy with you!’ She sighed.
Rifkah wasn’t there to hear it.
Then Alfie concentrated on Prindy, drawing him to her armchair, putting an arm about him, asking about his music, of which she had heard from Fergus. He answered readily enough. She cried, ‘Marvellous! Of course, you’re nationally famous already as a musician . . . The Little Boy Pan!’ She laughed merrily.
Rifkah came back to have a drink just before dinner. Alfie was very polite to her now, telling her how she had read of her in Truth. On the subject of riding, she laughed over her own poor showing on a horse, telling of her sore bottom and how Jeremy had made her an ointment for it, making it sound rather as if he had done more than the dispensing in treating her. Then the gong rang.
The meal went pleasantly enough, even animated by Alfie’s talkativeness. She talked mostly of the constructive things being accomplished by the Free Australia Movement, such as no one could object to, the urging of the establishment of a National University, the development of the Commonwealth Literary Fund from the mean Pensions for Poverty-stricken Old Writers Scheme it had functioned as since its inception with foundation of the Nation to true subsidisation of national talent to break the power of British Commercial Imperialism wielded so ruthlessly by the great British publishing concerns, appointment only of born Australians to the Vice-Regal positions so far held by Englishmen responsible only to the Crown of England. On this last score, she seemed even ignorant of the fact that the reform had been effected by the Scullin Labor Government back in 1931, with appointment of Chief Justice Isaac Isaacs to the Governor-Generalship, only to have it rescinded when the British Garrison, as she called it, got back into power with the betrayal of the Labor Party by Joseph Lyons, and the replacement of Isaacs with General Lord Gowrie — surely a nice point in her argument. But perhaps the fact that Isaacs was a Jew precluded him from mention in any matter concerning reform by Free Australia. It seemed for a moment that Jeremy was going to raise the matter, when he mentioned the fact that the reform was one of the Scullin Government’s ideals. However, he took it no further, maybe as a good host, or it could have been by reason of Alfie’s looking so childishly innocent in her enthusiasm for her cause. Both Rifkah and Kurt showed lively interest. Fergus, usually the life of the party, had little to say.
After dinner they all returned to the lounge. No walk tonight, by unspoken mutual consent, it seemed, even though it was a perfect night for walking, with Igulgul at first quarter sailing the ragged edge of the northern cloud-mass. Perhaps it was preoccupation with the news that kept them in. The radio news and comments all concerned Hitler’s now blatant disregard for the promises he’d made in the Munich Agreement concerning interference in Czechoslovakia. Only Alfie had much to say about it, not supporting Hitler by any means, but harping on the vital need for Australia to keep out of the certain trouble brewing: ‘This is our one chance of nationhood,’ she kept saying, ‘Our last chance. If we’re dragged into another war with the British it will be the end of us . . . financially, morally, in every way. Isn’t that so, Jeremy?’ He agreed, but with nothing like the enthusiasm that might be expected, and even went so far as to say that constitutionally there was no gainsaying involvement, since Australia was not a truly Sovereign State, not having ratified the Treaty of Westminster. That piece of information, unknown to Alfie, and evidently not to her superiors in her Movement, fairly fired her. She became quite hoarse trying to get him to commit himself to write an article on it, to do what she called, Expose the Dastardly Lie we Live Under. He argued that if he she called the Chief couldn’t do it, the Movement wasn’t worth tuppence. The arguing was stopped by the coming of Prindy with his clarinet, to play for Alfie, as she had earlier requested.
Prindy played quite unself-consciously. Alfie was delighted, and said that she must see to doing something about getting his compositions published through Australia Free. ‘We’re doing this for poetry,’ she said. ‘Of purely Australian tradition, of course.’ When Jeremy asked if the obvious Indian influence might not disqualify Prindy’s work, she cried, ‘Why should it? The Indians were amongst the first of our pioneers.’
In the same dry tone, Jeremy asked, ‘Then what about Jewish influence?’
Alfie blinked, looked quickly at Rifkah, who was watching her, then back to Jeremy, with colour mounting, and rather demanded, ‘Why Jewish?’
‘Well . . . that Morning Glory thing you liked so much, is very much in the tradition of the Yiddish folksong, I understand. Isn’t that so, Kurt?’
Kurt nodded and smiled. But it was on Rifkah again that Alfie’s dark eyes, narrowing, lit. She turned away from the gazing great jewels with half a shrug, back to Jeremy. ‘I was speaking of Australian tradition . . .’
‘If you concede Indians a right to have contributed to it, why not Jews? They were amongst our first citizens, in chains and out of them. As a matter of fact, our richest slang is derived from Yiddish . . . shikker, cobber, kleiner, spieler . . . didn’t you know?’
Alfie looked so much at a loss that the black
eyes hinted of tears.
Prindy, perhaps, saved the situation, at least for the moment, by rising and saying he was going to bed. Rifkah sprang up and went to him. Jeremy also rose, saying, ‘About time we all adjourned, I think. You people must’ve had a long day.’
‘I’ll say,’ said Fergus, also rising, stretching, yawning. ‘I’ve been on the go since four this morning.’
They were all up now, except Alfie. When Jeremy looked at her, she said, ‘I’ve got something for you to read.’
He stifled a yawn: ‘Okay. Let’s have it.’
She said it was in her suitcase, and rose and went hurrying to get it, ignoring Rifkah and Prindy about to mount the stairs, ran up. When she came down, which was after a little delay, there was no one left in the lounge except Jeremy. She handed him a long envelope. He glanced at it, put it in the back pocket of his trousers. She said, ‘I’d like you to read it tonight. It’s actually why I came.’
‘Okay. I’ll read it over in my den. Goodnight, dear!’
She said quickly, ‘But I want to be with you while you read it.’
He looked into the black eyes, regarding him earnestly, hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘No, dear . . . if you don’t mind. You hop off to bed. I’ll give you my opinion in the morning. Best for me to sleep on it, too.’
She cried, ‘But it isn’t something to sleep on. It’s urgent!’
She caught his arm. He stiffened, to hold her off, saying gently, ‘If it was so terribly urgent, why didn’t you give it to me at once?’
‘What chance did I have with that . . . with those . . . with . . .’ Tears welled in the eyes like a disappointed child’s.
He said quickly, ‘In the morning, dear. Goodnight!’
But she flung herself upon him, pressing into him, seeking his lips. He held her off, looking red, but saying gently enough, ‘That was naughty. Now, off you go. See you in the morning.’ He pushed her back into an armchair, then wheeled and went off quickly, through dining-room and kitchen.
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